Ryan: Thank you for the quality review. From time to time, AT includes a table that shows relative performance and pricing of GPUs in AMD's and nVidia's GPU offerings. Would you include such table in this article?
Those tables are typically only used in what we consider "primary" reviews.
For reviews and roundups of individual cards like this, we are less interested in how it compares to competitive cards, and more interested in how the reviewed products compare to other cards in the same product family. E.G. we've previously established how GTX 770 compares to 7970 and the like, but how do the individual 770 cards stack up?
Thanks for the review Ryan. I understand your reasoning for not including wider comparisons. For me, however, I always read GPU articles with an eye to "what does this mean for me?"...specifically, how is my 7950 boost holding up. I could wish for a better memory, I could open another tab and spend a few minutes pulling up past reviews...and I could wish that round-up and capsule reviews threw in a couple old charts (no reviewer comment or analysis needed), perhaps as an addendum titled "gpu overview" or "the big picture".
Two games, one favoring AMD and one Nividia, would be great... or even a link to past charts for convenience. Anyway, great reviews...this isn't really a criticism, its just something I would like to see...
For something like that we have Bench. You can compare any cards we have in our results database, and it always contains the latest data we have collected.
Ryan, how did you increase the max boost voltage from 1.2 to 1.212v? (Which app). I use afterburner but even though I move the voltage adjuster to 1.212, it reports at 1.2v.
Btw, I picked up the 4gb version of the evga 770 (FTW) based on this review & the memory over clocks you saw, and it too is reaching 8+ghz on the memory.
And, yes, your Bench comparison tool is great and quite helpful.
I just want to add my story. I get paid over $87 per hour working online with Google! I work two shifts 2 hours in the day and 2 in the evening. And whats awesome is Im working from home so I get more time with my kids. Its by-far the best job I’ve had. I follow this great link >>>> uttr.it/ukvczrq
Your comments about software from MSI, Evga and Gigabyte are a little strange as there is nothing at all stopping you from using any of their overclocking software on any of the cards mentioned. I use MSI Afterburner on my other branded cards all the time, it even works on laptops.
The point is that this software is part of what you're paying for when you purchase these cards. It's part of the value of the whole package. You could easily swap the heatsinks and fans, but those are still valid points to raise when reviewing the product as a whole.
Downloading evga precision x or msi afterburner is a bit easier than swapping heatsinks me thinks...
With this logic reviews should be using only the included drivers, which would dreadfully penalize the card with the older drivers packaged.
In a review that dares to mention "Bios flashing" for a gpu, downloading a universal overclocking utility should be considered as trivial as making sure you have current nvidia or amd drivers.
I just want to add my story. I get paid over $87 per hour working online with Google! I work two shifts 2 hours in the day and 2 in the evening. And whats awesome is Im working from home so I get more time with my kids. Its by-far the best job I’ve had. I follow this great link >>>> >>>>
EVGA also has several GTX 7xx cards with dual or even triple bioses. http://www.evga.com/articles/00767/ Would also be interested in further information on whether any video cards being reviewed include a "UEFI GOP video firmware", which Windows 8 would require for installation and running in UEFI mode.
"The end result being that MSI has put together a very good card that’s easily competitive with everything else we’ve seen, but without crossing the line into unofficial modifications, the EVGA’s $35 price premium is hard to justify."
Shouldn't that be MSI's $35 price premium is hard to justify?
Nice review! These are exactly the three cards I was considering, and I think it leaves me leaning in the Gigabyte direction unless I just by the Lightning for the great looks. :)
Do you measure the noise in open desk setup? Or in a particular case?
I think (actually sure) that the difference between card coolers, their thermal efficiency heavily depend on the environment they are in. Open desk does not simulate any real case airflow hence you may get false rpm (lower) and noise characteristics vs in a real life in-case scenario.
Be nice to have the Asus 770 card. It has a very large heatsink which makes it ideal for single GPU overclocking IMO. Drawback is the extra slot taken up if you are planning to SLI.
The Asus 770 is two slots, but definitely would have liked to have seen it in this review. I have the Asus 660 - really like that heatpipe system, very quiet and efficient
Gigabyte has a 4GB Windforce 3X too. Maybe these could justify another article? It makes me think I would like to see a deeper dive between these three cards plus their 4GB brothers in just one or two games but at multiple resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and something bigger) and quality settings, trying to find where clock rate and memory bandwidth tradeoff as the limiting factor. One of the games should be something that showed a difference in today's test and the other should be one that didn't.
Still, I think it is pretty clear that the 770 is a great performer especially for a small chip like the GK104. It makes me wonder what a chip like this would do if they scaled it up to GK110 size and kept it strictly a gaming chip.
Yeah. It'd probably help if you did SLI on a multi-monitor setup, but at single-GPU resolutions the amount of memory isn't going to hurt on you on these.
Fwiw, the 4gb version of the evga 770 I have also achieves these same over clocks as Ryan saw on the 2gb model, including on the memory. I run triple 1440x900=4320x900, and as several have commented, it's probably really only on those very high resolutions where the 4gb memory comes into play. In case it helps, when running BF4 with settings at mix of mostly ultra & some on high, afterburner reports VRAM usage in ~2.4gb range on most maps.
It would be awesome to see a review of one of eVGA's niche cards, like the GTX770 Classified Hydro Copper. I'm running one in my system atm, and love it, but would love to see what's said about it from professional reviewers.
I am just endlessly impressed with Gigabyte. The consistently offer a performance to value ratio that is either the best or among the best and they do so at very competitive prices even without discounts and sales. When their products do go on sale they're simply unbeatable. I can't wait to see them expand into more categories.
Also, their reliability is flawless and their support is top notch.
Anandtech, when are you going to update your comment section? We REALLY need more features. The ability to edit comments, notifications via email when people respond. These are BASIC things.
This is one time for MSI, it probably just pays to get MSI Gaming N770 TF 2GD5/OC model as you mention 770 are pushed to limit already . The MSI gaming N770 TF is same price as others 399$
8.2 Ghz is very impressive for a memory overclock. I'd love to see such speeds on Ttian or the R9 290x for the extra bandwidth. That'd get you 524 GB/s bandwidth on the R9 290x which should be very beneficial for 4k gaming. Of course this is wishful thinking as going with a wider bus often limits memory bus speeds, but one can dream right?
The problem is that the wider you make the memory bus the harder it is to route the traces on the PCB to allow high-frequency operation. AMD is only shipping the R9 290X at around 5GHz memory, and you can bet that in order to save on costs they won't be using higher rated memory chips. It might take custom PCBs before different memory chips are used, and AMD isn't allowing vendors to customize the card at all at launch.
You can use MSI Afterburner on any AMD/NVidia based graphics card regardless of vendor. Only thing you lose by going non-MSI non-reference board (like the Gigabyte of this roundup), is voltage control, but that is limited on these GTX 700 series cards anyway.
- 38 dBA is very high for idle. What's the measuring distance ? Background noise with computer off ? Noise of the computer with fanless graphic card ? - What are the model of 7970 and 7970 GHz tested ?
It is interesting to see how far the custom cooling solutions (and custom PCBs) have come on video cards. I know it is nothing new and obviously marketing-driven, but nevertheless gives consumers more choices and better experiences.
Even betweein the same OEM's cooler's, I see how they "evolved." For instance, Gigabyte's WindForce had quite a few shortcomings at first - no heatsinks on memory/VRMs, fan rattling and getting worse over time, etc. It's great to see that they are learning and improving.
I would love to see an expansion to the OC section of these reviews and having OC figures for the comparison cards as well (760, 780, 7970, and 7970GE). Can you or whoever is writing up the review the upcoming R9 280X also include the OC benchmarks of the 770s in the overclock section of that review?
Something that would be very useful and valuable for differentiation purposes would be a card easy to clean. All of my cards get his radiators completely occluded with dust from time to time, and cleaning them is incredibely annoying.
I wish it could be as easy as trowing the radiator and fans to the dishwasher. But it never is as simple. I don't dare to wet my fans, because they are not detachable from the engines. And removing the radiator mean having silicone paste to reinstall them. Frequently I don't ever have silicone paste. I need to buy more, and that's a delay, and an impediment to clean the cards at convenient times.
Same goes for CPU and power refrigeration systems.
Is there any chance to add an SLI of 2x GTX 760 to this round of benchmarks? This option costs less than a GTX780, but has the potential of out-performing a Titan. Therefore it would be very interesting to see how it performs in reality.
Ryan, can you tell me if this GTX 770 would be a good choice to replace my very old ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT for the specific purpose of improving my Final Cut Pro editing processes? I just don't know if the graphics cards play that big a roll in the editing displays and playback for Final Cut, and if I am just fine with what I have.
I'm really disappointed by the EVGA card. I currently own a 770 SC ACX. It's loud in idle (fan won't go below 1400rpm), it's pretty loud under load. Why do I even buy a custom card? For the 50MHz higher boost? They clearly forgot what a custom card is all about. You can get a silent BIOS from the support which reduces the idle fan speed to 1100rpm. Still way too loud for my taste.
Same goes for the ASUS DC2OC by the way. It's quieter in idle, but fans won't go below 1100rpm.
i'm not sure why he is getting this result on stock Gigabyte, mine boosts to 1257 MHz on stock, i pushed it to 1300 Mhz and OCed memory to 7.7 Ghz and its stable.
This has helped a lot in my quest for a new GPU. I think I've settled on the Gigabyte Windforce. However, I was a little confused by the listing. To ask plainly, if I was searching for this card to purchase, what would be the difference between the "OC Windforce" and the "OC Windforce OC?" It isn't an OC Windforce card you've gone and someway re-overclocked, is it?
It only exist the "OC Windforce". This "OC" means that it has the multipliers unlocked. The last OC (OC Windforce "OC") means that they overclocked and made the benchmarks tests.
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gandergray - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Ryan: Thank you for the quality review. From time to time, AT includes a table that shows relative performance and pricing of GPUs in AMD's and nVidia's GPU offerings. Would you include such table in this article?Ryan Smith - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Those tables are typically only used in what we consider "primary" reviews.For reviews and roundups of individual cards like this, we are less interested in how it compares to competitive cards, and more interested in how the reviewed products compare to other cards in the same product family. E.G. we've previously established how GTX 770 compares to 7970 and the like, but how do the individual 770 cards stack up?
BlakKW - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
Thanks for the review Ryan. I understand your reasoning for not including wider comparisons. For me, however, I always read GPU articles with an eye to "what does this mean for me?"...specifically, how is my 7950 boost holding up. I could wish for a better memory, I could open another tab and spend a few minutes pulling up past reviews...and I could wish that round-up and capsule reviews threw in a couple old charts (no reviewer comment or analysis needed), perhaps as an addendum titled "gpu overview" or "the big picture".Two games, one favoring AMD and one Nividia, would be great... or even a link to past charts for convenience. Anyway, great reviews...this isn't really a criticism, its just something I would like to see...
Ryan Smith - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
For something like that we have Bench. You can compare any cards we have in our results database, and it always contains the latest data we have collected.http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU13/
BlakKW - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
nice...never noticed that feature beforeGBHans - Sunday, November 3, 2013 - link
Ryan, how did you increase the max boost voltage from 1.2 to 1.212v? (Which app). I use afterburner but even though I move the voltage adjuster to 1.212, it reports at 1.2v.Btw, I picked up the 4gb version of the evga 770 (FTW) based on this review & the memory over clocks you saw, and it too is reaching 8+ghz on the memory.
And, yes, your Bench comparison tool is great and quite helpful.
neaoon - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
hyyyyyneaoon - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
I just want to add my story. I get paid over $87 per hour working online with Google! I work two shifts 2 hours in the day and 2 in the evening. And whats awesome is Im working from home so I get more time with my kids. Its by-far the best job I’ve had. I follow this great link >>>> uttr.it/ukvczrqFlunk - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Your comments about software from MSI, Evga and Gigabyte are a little strange as there is nothing at all stopping you from using any of their overclocking software on any of the cards mentioned. I use MSI Afterburner on my other branded cards all the time, it even works on laptops.jordanclock - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
The point is that this software is part of what you're paying for when you purchase these cards. It's part of the value of the whole package. You could easily swap the heatsinks and fans, but those are still valid points to raise when reviewing the product as a whole.dtolios - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Downloading evga precision x or msi afterburner is a bit easier than swapping heatsinks me thinks...With this logic reviews should be using only the included drivers, which would dreadfully penalize the card with the older drivers packaged.
In a review that dares to mention "Bios flashing" for a gpu, downloading a universal overclocking utility should be considered as trivial as making sure you have current nvidia or amd drivers.
neaoon - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
I just want to add my story. I get paid over $87 per hour working online with Google! I work two shifts 2 hours in the day and 2 in the evening. And whats awesome is Im working from home so I get more time with my kids. Its by-far the best job I’ve had. I follow this great link >>>> >>>>neaoon - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
BAy89com
Elijafire - Saturday, March 22, 2014 - link
Everyone's a critic :p Personally I found the reviews of the software management tools to be useful and informative.vailr - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
EVGA also has several GTX 7xx cards with dual or even triple bioses.http://www.evga.com/articles/00767/
Would also be interested in further information on whether any video cards being reviewed include a "UEFI GOP video firmware", which Windows 8 would require for installation and running in UEFI mode.
Ryan Smith - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Our new testbed (coming soon to a review near you) will be UEFI ready. So we'll finally be able to do some UEFI GOP articles.Gast - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
"The end result being that MSI has put together a very good card that’s easily competitive with everything else we’ve seen, but without crossing the line into unofficial modifications, the EVGA’s $35 price premium is hard to justify."Shouldn't that be MSI's $35 price premium is hard to justify?
Ryan Smith - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Whoops. Yes. Thank you for pointing that out.Elijafire - Saturday, March 22, 2014 - link
You are paying for the highest stock overclock.kwrzesien - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Nice review! These are exactly the three cards I was considering, and I think it leaves me leaning in the Gigabyte direction unless I just by the Lightning for the great looks. :)ThomasS31 - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Do you measure the noise in open desk setup?Or in a particular case?
I think (actually sure) that the difference between card coolers, their thermal efficiency heavily depend on the environment they are in. Open desk does not simulate any real case airflow hence you may get false rpm (lower) and noise characteristics vs in a real life in-case scenario.
Ryan Smith - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
All of our GPU testing is in a case, noise testing included. Specifically we use a Thermaltake Speedo (though that's getting retired next week).zlandar - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Be nice to have the Asus 770 card. It has a very large heatsink which makes it ideal for single GPU overclocking IMO. Drawback is the extra slot taken up if you are planning to SLI.maecenas - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...The Asus 770 is two slots, but definitely would have liked to have seen it in this review. I have the Asus 660 - really like that heatpipe system, very quiet and efficient
yodies - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Ryan, great article. EVGA has a 770 with 4GB of VRAM for sale as well. What sorts of differences would the additional RAM make?kwrzesien - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Gigabyte has a 4GB Windforce 3X too. Maybe these could justify another article? It makes me think I would like to see a deeper dive between these three cards plus their 4GB brothers in just one or two games but at multiple resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and something bigger) and quality settings, trying to find where clock rate and memory bandwidth tradeoff as the limiting factor. One of the games should be something that showed a difference in today's test and the other should be one that didn't.Still, I think it is pretty clear that the 770 is a great performer especially for a small chip like the GK104. It makes me wonder what a chip like this would do if they scaled it up to GK110 size and kept it strictly a gaming chip.
DanNeely - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
HardOCP looks at extra ram card regularly, I don't think any they've had in the last few years showed any benefit from the extra memory in gameplay.A5 - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Yeah. It'd probably help if you did SLI on a multi-monitor setup, but at single-GPU resolutions the amount of memory isn't going to hurt on you on these.GBHans - Sunday, November 3, 2013 - link
Fwiw, the 4gb version of the evga 770 I have also achieves these same over clocks as Ryan saw on the 2gb model, including on the memory. I run triple 1440x900=4320x900, and as several have commented, it's probably really only on those very high resolutions where the 4gb memory comes into play. In case it helps, when running BF4 with settings at mix of mostly ultra & some on high, afterburner reports VRAM usage in ~2.4gb range on most maps.Taristin - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
It would be awesome to see a review of one of eVGA's niche cards, like the GTX770 Classified Hydro Copper. I'm running one in my system atm, and love it, but would love to see what's said about it from professional reviewers.Ryan Smith - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
We're not setup to review open loop coolers. However the new testbed will be able to accommodate GPUs with closed loop coolers, such as the Asus Ares.Hrel - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
I am just endlessly impressed with Gigabyte. The consistently offer a performance to value ratio that is either the best or among the best and they do so at very competitive prices even without discounts and sales. When their products do go on sale they're simply unbeatable. I can't wait to see them expand into more categories.Hrel - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Also, their reliability is flawless and their support is top notch.Anandtech, when are you going to update your comment section? We REALLY need more features. The ability to edit comments, notifications via email when people respond. These are BASIC things.
Edkiefer - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
This is one time for MSI, it probably just pays to get MSI Gaming N770 TF 2GD5/OC model as you mention 770 are pushed to limit already . The MSI gaming N770 TF is same price as others 399$RadiclDreamer - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
I've been waiting for some time for a review that includes the 4GB version as well, any chance of that happening?Kevin G - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
8.2 Ghz is very impressive for a memory overclock. I'd love to see such speeds on Ttian or the R9 290x for the extra bandwidth. That'd get you 524 GB/s bandwidth on the R9 290x which should be very beneficial for 4k gaming. Of course this is wishful thinking as going with a wider bus often limits memory bus speeds, but one can dream right?The Von Matrices - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
The problem is that the wider you make the memory bus the harder it is to route the traces on the PCB to allow high-frequency operation. AMD is only shipping the R9 290X at around 5GHz memory, and you can bet that in order to save on costs they won't be using higher rated memory chips. It might take custom PCBs before different memory chips are used, and AMD isn't allowing vendors to customize the card at all at launch.hulu - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
You can use MSI Afterburner on any AMD/NVidia based graphics card regardless of vendor. Only thing you lose by going non-MSI non-reference board (like the Gigabyte of this roundup), is voltage control, but that is limited on these GTX 700 series cards anyway.wsaenotsock - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Maybe I missed it, but where the hell is the test system's information, or did including that information go out of style..iTzSnypah - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
I think that to truly test the effectiveness of each cooler the noise and temperature graphs should use the reference clocks.MarcHFR - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
Hi RyanTwo question
- 38 dBA is very high for idle. What's the measuring distance ? Background noise with computer off ? Noise of the computer with fanless graphic card ?
- What are the model of 7970 and 7970 GHz tested ?
Thans a lot !
Ryan Smith - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
1) It's fairly close; under a foot. The idea isn't so much to measure absolute noise as to compare and rank cards.2) Reference 7970. HIS IceQ X2 7970 GHz Edition.
MarcHFR - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link
Thanks, so less than one foot from the closed Thermaltake Speedo, that's it ?And what about background and computer (without active graphic card) noise ? What is the sound-level meter used ? Thanks
PC Perv - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
It is interesting to see how far the custom cooling solutions (and custom PCBs) have come on video cards. I know it is nothing new and obviously marketing-driven, but nevertheless gives consumers more choices and better experiences.Thank you for thorough review, Ryan.
PC Perv - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
Even betweein the same OEM's cooler's, I see how they "evolved." For instance, Gigabyte's WindForce had quite a few shortcomings at first - no heatsinks on memory/VRMs, fan rattling and getting worse over time, etc. It's great to see that they are learning and improving.Slomo4shO - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link
I would love to see an expansion to the OC section of these reviews and having OC figures for the comparison cards as well (760, 780, 7970, and 7970GE). Can you or whoever is writing up the review the upcoming R9 280X also include the OC benchmarks of the 770s in the overclock section of that review?marraco - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link
Something that would be very useful and valuable for differentiation purposes would be a card easy to clean. All of my cards get his radiators completely occluded with dust from time to time, and cleaning them is incredibely annoying.I wish it could be as easy as trowing the radiator and fans to the dishwasher. But it never is as simple. I don't dare to wet my fans, because they are not detachable from the engines. And removing the radiator mean having silicone paste to reinstall them. Frequently I don't ever have silicone paste. I need to buy more, and that's a delay, and an impediment to clean the cards at convenient times.
Same goes for CPU and power refrigeration systems.
ShieTar - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Is there any chance to add an SLI of 2x GTX 760 to this round of benchmarks? This option costs less than a GTX780, but has the potential of out-performing a Titan. Therefore it would be very interesting to see how it performs in reality.The Warden - Sunday, November 3, 2013 - link
Ryan, can you tell me if this GTX 770 would be a good choice to replace my very old ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT for the specific purpose of improving my Final Cut Pro editing processes? I just don't know if the graphics cards play that big a roll in the editing displays and playback for Final Cut, and if I am just fine with what I have.Chloiber - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
I'm really disappointed by the EVGA card. I currently own a 770 SC ACX. It's loud in idle (fan won't go below 1400rpm), it's pretty loud under load. Why do I even buy a custom card? For the 50MHz higher boost?They clearly forgot what a custom card is all about. You can get a silent BIOS from the support which reduces the idle fan speed to 1100rpm. Still way too loud for my taste.
Same goes for the ASUS DC2OC by the way. It's quieter in idle, but fans won't go below 1100rpm.
YazX_ - Sunday, December 8, 2013 - link
i'm not sure why he is getting this result on stock Gigabyte, mine boosts to 1257 MHz on stock, i pushed it to 1300 Mhz and OCed memory to 7.7 Ghz and its stable.Go6s - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
I've got same results with my Gainwward GTX 770 ref, by tweaking bios.What voltage for 1257 stock ?
The Buggman - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
This has helped a lot in my quest for a new GPU. I think I've settled on the Gigabyte Windforce. However, I was a little confused by the listing. To ask plainly, if I was searching for this card to purchase, what would be the difference between the "OC Windforce" and the "OC Windforce OC?" It isn't an OC Windforce card you've gone and someway re-overclocked, is it?chegax - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
It only exist the "OC Windforce". This "OC" means that it has the multipliers unlocked. The last OC (OC Windforce "OC") means that they overclocked and made the benchmarks tests.Go6s - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
Really nice !I just have one question.
In the grid, at line "Overclock Core Clock", these are max values to base voltage (1.100v) by tweaking bios ?